“Must be pilot error,” she said, grimacing in disgust. “Some yahoo pulled up to the wrong gate. There’s not supposed to be anyone at that gate until the Cleveland flight at nine thirty.”
Angela considered telling Monique that if Sky Trails had banned crash from their employees’ vocabulary, that maybe passengers should be protected from hearing pilot error as well. But Monique was already grabbing the telephone, barking out orders.
“Yeah, Bob, major screwup,” she was saying. “You’ve got to get someone over here…. No, I don’t know which gate it was supposed to go to. How would I know? Do you think I’m clairvoyant?…No, I can’t see the numbers on the plane. Don’t you know it’s dark out?”
With her free hand, Monique was gesturing frantically at Angela.
“At least go open the door!” she hissed.
“You mean…”
“The door to the jetway!” Monique said, pointing. Angela hoped that some of the contempt on Monique’s face was intended for Bob, not just her. Angela imagined meeting Bob someday, sharing a laugh at Monique’s expense. Still, dutifully, she walked over to the 2B waiting area and pulled open the door to the hallway that led down to the plane.
Nobody came out.
Angela picked a piece of lint off her blue skirt and then stood at attention, her back perfectly straight, just like in the training videos. Maybe she couldn’t keep track of standby codes, but she was capable of standing up straight.
Still, nobody appeared.
Angela began to feel foolish, standing so alertly by an open door that no one was using. She bent her head and peeked down the jetway—it was deserted and turned at such an angle that she couldn’t see all the way down to the plane, to see if anyone had opened the door to the jet yet. She backed up a little and peered out the window, straight down to the cockpit of the plane. The cockpit was dark, its windows blank, and that struck Angela as odd. She’d been on the job for only five hours, and she’d been a little distracted. But she was pretty sure that when planes landed, the pilots stayed in the cockpit for a while filling out paperwork or something. She thought that they at least waited until all the passengers were off before they turned out the cockpit lights.
Angela peeked down the empty jetway once more and went back to Monique.
“Of course I’m sure there’s a plane at that gate! I can see it with my own eyes!” Monique was practically screaming into the phone. She shook her head at Angela, and for the first time it was almost in a companionable way, as if to say, At least you know there’s a plane there! Unlike the other morons I have to deal with! Monique cupped her hand over the receiver and fumed to Angela, “The incompetence around here is unbelievable! The control tower says that plane never landed, never showed up on the radar. The Sky Trails dispatcher says we’re not missing a plane—everything that was supposed to land in the past hour pulled up to the right gate, and all the other planes due to arrive within the next hour or so are accounted for. How could so many people just lose a plane?”
Or, how could we find it? Angela thought. The whole situation was beginning to seem strange to her, otherworldly. But maybe that was just a function of being new to the job, of having spent so much time concentrating on the computer and being yelled at by Monique. Maybe airports lost and found planes all the time, and that was just one of those things nobody had mentioned in the Sky Trails orientation.
“Did, uh, anybody try to contact the pilot?” Angela asked cautiously.
“Of course!” Monique said. “But there’s no answer. He must be on the wrong frequency.”
Angela thought of the dark cockpit, the way she hadn’t been able to see through the windows. She decided not to mention this.
“Should I go back and wait?…”
Monique nodded fiercely and went back to yelling into the phone: “What do you mean, this isn’t your responsibility? It’s not my responsibility either!”
Angela was glad to put a wide aisle and two waiting areas between herself and Monique again. She went back to the jetway door by gate 2B. The sloped hallway leading down to the plane was still empty, and the colorful travel posters lining the walls—“Sky Trails! Your ticket to the world!”—seemed jarringly bright. Angela stepped into the jetway.
I’ll just go down far enough to see if the jet door is open, she told herself. It may be a violation of protocol, but Monique won’t notice, not when she’s busy yelling at everyone else in the airport….
At the bend in the ramp, Angela looked around the corner. She had a limited view, but caught a quick glimpse of a flight attendants’ little galley, with neatly stowed drink carts. Obviously, the jet door was standing wide open. She started to turn around, already beginning to debate with herself about whether she should report this information to Monique. Then she heard—what? A whimper? A cry?
Angela couldn’t exactly identify the sound, but it was enough to pull her on down the jetway.
New Sky Trails employee saves passenger on first day on job, she thought to herself, imagining the praise and congratulations—and maybe the raise—she’d be sure to receive if what she was visualizing was real. She’d learned CPR in the orientation session. She knew basic first aid. She knew where every emergency phone in the airport was located. She started walking faster, then running.
On the side of the jet, she was surprised to see a strange insignia: TACHYON TRAVEL, it said, some airline Angela had never heard of. Was that a private charter company maybe? And then, while she was staring at it, the words suddenly changed into the familiar wing-in-the-clouds symbol of Sky Trails.
Angela blinked.
That couldn’t have happened, she told herself. It was just an optical illusion, just because I was running, just because I’m worried about whoever made that cry or whimper….